Our Awful Situation

Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

Newer Entries »

GAO: Feds Live Lavishly on Credit Cards

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 9th, 2008

I guess membership has its privileges: 

Federal employees charged millions of dollars for Internet dating, tailor-made suits, lingerie, lavish dinners and other questionable expenses to their government credit cards over a 15-month period, congressional auditors say.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, examined spending controls across the federal government following reports of credit-card abuse at departments including Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

The review of card spending at more than a dozen departments from 2005 to 2006 found that nearly 41 percent of roughly $14 billion in credit-card purchases, whether legitimate or questionable, did not follow procedure — either because they were not properly authorized or they had not been signed for by an independent third party as called for in federal rules to deter fraud.

For purchases over $2,500, nearly half — or 48 percent — were unauthorized or improperly received.

Out of a sample of purchases totaling $2.7 million, the government could not account for hundreds of laptop computers, iPods and digital cameras worth more than $1.8 million. In one case, the U.S. Army could not say what happened to computer items making up 16 server configurations, each of which cost nearly $100,000.

Agencies often could not provide the required paperwork to justify questionable purchases. Investigators also found that federal employees sometimes double-billed or improperly expensed lavish meals and Internet dating for many months without question from supervisors; the charges were often noticed only after auditors or whistle-blowers raised questions.

Continued…

Counting people is hard (for the government) to do

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 4th, 2008

Census Bureau scales back handheld plans, while project costs keep rising:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Census Bureau’s plan to rely on automation, instead of paper, to conduct much of the 2010 national census is now officially a boondoggle. The agency is facing a cost overrun of up to $3 billion on the census, as well as angry members of Congress who are looking for someone to blame.

And Census Bureau officials are scaling back their automation plans, reducing the 500,000 custom-built handheld devices that the agency is buying from Harris Corp. to little more than bit players in the next census. At the same time, the size of the five-year contract that the Census Bureau signed with Harris in 2006 is more than doubling, from just under $600 million to about $1.3 billion.

The mood was caustic at a hearing on the census held here today by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee members received the bad news that the 2010 census may now cost as much as $14.5 billion. And they seemed incredulous about the increase in some cost estimates, such as the ballooning of a $37 million expenditure for an IT help desk to nearly $220 million. Or the addition of $30 million to build a new data center.

So they burned through $600M on technology they won’t use. The result is an additional $3 billion in added expense?

This truly is a government operation!

Apathetic Christians are killing America

Posted by Charlie Kilo on April 1st, 2008

From Pastor Chuck Baldwin:

I know that almost all of our pastors and church leaders will laud and honor a young Christian man’s decision to join our armed forces and go overseas to fight enemies abroad. But when it comes to opposing those within our own country who seek to dismantle constitutional government or the principles of liberty, their support for resistance turns to apathy and indifference. (The reason for this couldn’t be because they simply don’t want to do the hard work, could it? Please tell me it ain’t so!)

I have even had Christians tell me that we should not oppose any attempts to resist draconian developments within our country, because doing so would actually be resisting God. The reasoning goes something like this: “The Bible says things will get worse and worse. Therefore, all this ‘bad’ stuff happening is God’s will, and if we try to prevent it, we are fighting against God’s will.” I know it sounds incredible, but we might be shocked as to the number of professing Christians that actually subscribe to such nonsense.

If it is right to resist evil in a foreign country half way around the world, why is it not right to resist evil in our own country?

Great question! Read more…

Newer Entries »
{ }

Search

Recent Posts

Sites of Interest

Archives

Categories